![]() They forget that Good Character is the foundation of all acts. Eastman writes a programme text for the premiere, in which he pronounces the piece “a reminder to those who think that they can destroy liberators by acts of treachery, malice, and murder. Where has the lightness gone? The relation to pop music? The love for the musicians who have to develop the piece during its performance? “The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc” sounds like heavy metal: forceful, dark, urgent, sawing – and then lamenting, heartbreaking. Eastman releases “The Holy Presence of Joan d’Arc”. And everyone knows: Julius Eastman is serious about there being a close link between political change and musical emancipation.Ĭut to 1981. “Stay on It” is about respect, mutual support in seeking and finding, about an openness to the world, in which people strive for self-liberation and in which the boundaries between classical and pop music collapse, because they represent false hierarchies.ġ973 – Eastman has a stipend at the University at Buffalo’s Center for the Creative and Performing Arts, he is taught by Morton Feldman, fostered by legendary conductor Lukas Foss, is already known as a singer and performer, and Petr Kotik and the Creative Associates finally want to put his pieces on the concert stage. Cues to move to each next section may be visual, or a pre-determined musical cue.” It is clear that Eastman is writing for a collective of intelligent, cooperative, well-informed musicians. And: “Each element (Theme, Cells) may be repeated ad lib. “Players may choose to play and repeat the layered cells at their own discretion,” the playing directions for the piece read. Once the musicians have gotten used to the discipline, have adopted the groove that Eastman demands of them, a vast field of new connections opens up to them, leading to sublime sonic unions. It is strict and demands maximum concentration from its performers, but releases them into playfulness. ![]() It is open to theatrical and performative elements, but also to the poetic and lyrical. It is minimal, but unashamedly groovy it is open to improvisation, grants performers all the freedom they could need, but it isn’t jazz and never slips into the non-committal. In 1973, avant-garde ensemble Creative Associates goes on a tour of Europe with Eastman’s brand new piece in their repertoire, and in short: “Stay on It” turns the coordinates of avant-garde music on its head. It reshuffles the deck: “Stay on It” by Julius Eastman (1940–1990). Mary Jane Leach is a composer and freelance writer, currently writing music and theatre criticism for the Albany Times-Union.It has power, is unpredictable, bringing together familiar things before disbanding them again. Lewis, Matthew Mendez, John Patrick Thomas Renée Levine Packer's book This Life of Sounds: Evenings for New Music in Buffalo received an ASCAP Deems Taylor Award for excellence. Nemo Hill, Mary Jane Leach, Renée Levine Packer, George E. Contributors: David Borden, Luciano Chessa, Ryan Dohoney, Kyle Gann, Andrew Hanson-Dvoracek, R. The book presents an authentic portrait of a notable American artist that is compelling reading for the general reader as well as scholars interested in twentieth-century American music, American studies, gay rights, and civil rights. In addition to analyses of Eastman's music, the essays in Gay Guerrilla provide background on his remarkable life history and the era's social landscape. ![]() These episodes are examples of Eastman's persistence in pushing the limits of the acceptable in the highly charged arenas of sexual and civil rights. Eastman's provocative titles, including Gay Guerrilla, Evil Nigger, Crazy Nigger, and others assault us with his obsessions.BR Eastman tested limits with his political aggressiveness, as recounted in legendary scandals he unleashed like his June 1975 performance of John Cage's Song Books, which featured homoerotic interjections, or the uproar over his titles at Northwestern University. His music, insistent and straightforward, resists labels and seethes with a tension that resonates with musicians, scholars, and audiences today. Composer-performer Julius Eastman (1940-90) was an enigma, both comfortable and uncomfortable in the many worlds he inhabited: black, white, gay, straight, classical music, disco, academia, and downtown New York.
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